Waymo Archives, 2009 - A self-driving trip down Lombard St, SF

Description:

In 2017, Waymo put the world's first fleet of fully self-driving vehicles, without anyone in the driver's seat, on public roads in Arizona. Fully self-driving vehicles are a reality today, but back in 2009, there was still an open question of whether self-driving cars were possible.

To prove that self-driving cars were viable, Waymo (then Google) set up a challenge: drive 100,000 fully autonomous miles on public roads -- an order of magnitude more than had ever been driven at that time -- along with ten 100-mile challenging routes. During these 100-mile routes, we drove the peaks of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the bustling streets of Monterey, CA, and even San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate Bridge. Here, we take a ride down one of the windiest streets in the world: Lombard Street, located in San Francisco. These tests gave us the confidence to pursue self-driving vehicles, and now we're on our way to bringing this technology to everyone, everywhere.